The Urban Grind

Congressman John Murtha, who called our troops cold blooded killers has died.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A spokesman says Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a retired Marine Corps officer who became an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, has died. He was 77.

He had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery.

In 1974, Murtha became the first combat veteran of the Vietnam War elected to Congress. He wielded considerable clout for two decades as a leader of the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending. But frustration over the Iraq war led him to call for an immediate pullout of U.S. troops in 2005.

Murtha’s congressional career was clouded by questions about his ethics—from the Abscam corruption probe in 1980 to more recent investigations into the special-interest spending known as earmarks and the raising of cash for election campaigns.

Considering how politically correct Americans have become, it’s no surprise that these terrorists are getting bolder and bolder. Now the fanatics are acting out on trains.

LA JUNTA, Colo. – An Amtrak passenger who alarmed fellow passengers in Colorado by allegedly talking about terrorist threats on a cell phone was pulled from the train and faces a felony charge of endangering public transportation.

Ojore Nuru Lutalo, 64, who was recently released from prison, was arrested Tuesday on an Amtrak passage from Los Angeles to Chicago. Passengers on the train alerted authorities after allegedly hearing the man from Elizabeth, N.J., mention al-Qaida and make threats in a cell phone conversation.

Lutalo, freed Thursday on $30,000 bond and now in Denver, denies mentioning al-Qaida or making any threats.

{snip}

Police said in an affidavit that passengers overheard Lutalo saying he hadn’t killed anyone yet, and that he talked about going to jail.

Passengers say the man said, “We have to work in small groups. They can hold you for 18 months. Do they have security on these trains? Are you with me or not?”

One passenger said he heard Lutalo mention al-Qaida, saying, “17th century tactics won’t work, we have 21st century tactics.”

The conductor said Lutalo had a tan blanket over his entire body so the conductor could not see what he was doing.

Lutalo was taken into custody at the La Junta train station in southeastern Colorado. Police said he was not armed or carrying explosives. He was carrying propaganda for an anarchist group called Afrikan Liberation Army.

Here’s yet another incident that occurred occurred on a plane.

29 January 2010: A South Jersey woman got the scare of her life when she tried to report suspicious activity on board a plane Philadelphia International Airport.

The woman shared details of her terrifying ordeal only with Fox 29 News on Wednesday.

Now, she’s wondering if it was some kind of sick joke or a test run for a terrorist.

Fox 29’s Dave Schratwieser reported that 12 days after her red-eye flight from Los Angeles, the US Airways passenger is still upset over an incident on her flight, the reaction to it by the flight crew, and the lack of reaction from authorities.

“I was trembling, and I was just completely frightened,” said the mother of three.

She won ‘t soon forget her latest US Airways flight from L.A. to Philadelphia after she encountered a passenger on board who scared the daylights out of her.

“He starts talking to himself. Then he goes, ‘Detroit, huh-huh-huh,’ like that, and it was really, really frightening,” she said.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said the passenger was Muslim and repeatedly made a reference to the latest terrorism incident in Detroit on Christmas Day with the so called “underwear bomber.”

The passenger immediately told a flight attendant, who then told the pilot before the plane even left the gate.

What the flight attendant said next shocked the passenger: “‘The pilot has asked me to ask you if you think we should leave the gate.’ And I looked at her, and I said, ‘What?’”

The woman told Fox 29 News no one from the flight crew spoke to the man or investigated further. Then, the pilot made a call to the flight attendant.

The passenger said the flight attendant, “Looks at me and says, ‘We need an answer.’ … She’s like, ‘We’re gonna go, but I’ll keep an eye on him.’” Zelda adds: How lame of that pilot to ask a passenger about what should have been done with a suspicious Muslim passenger. That pilot should have had the man immediately thrown off the flight.

The flight took off. The woman sat terrified for five hours all of the way to Philadelphia.

Then, just before the plane landed, the pilot ordered everyone to remain seated. The passenger said that’s when the man got up, walked to the rear of the plane and put his backpack in an overhead bin, then went to the bathroom.

“I’m like, ‘This is it, this is how I’m gonna die,’” she said.

No one questioned the woman or the suspicious passenger in Philadelphia.

When she tried to report it to the Transportation Security Administration, Homeland Security, US Airways, even the FBI, she got nowhere.

“He listened to my entire story, never took my name, the flight information, nothing, and told me that, if there was an issue, US Air would have contacted them,” the woman said. Zelda adds: No doubt those people were terrified of offending Muslims and being accused of ethnic/racial profiling.

The woman said US Airways told her if the man got through security, there’s nothing to worry about. Zelda adds: That Nigerian underwear bomber also got through security! It was only his ineptness and stupidity that prevented hundreds of people from getting killed.

A TSA spokesperson told Fox 29 that if you have an incident like this onboard a flight you should immediately report it to a TSA customer service person at the airport when you arrive. Zelda adds: Yeah right. They’ll only blow you off.

Fox 29 is waiting for a response from US Airways.

NOTE: If anyone reading this knows this South Jersey woman please ask her to contact the Northeast Intelligence Network ( sosborne@homelandsecurityus.com ) or this blog directly ( neinblog@gmail.com ).

I can’t begin to tell you all how many times I’ve been either in a yellow NYC taxi or an airport limousine where the driver was chattering away on his cellphone, either with, or without a head set. When I would first get into the cab, I used to always assume they were talking to me. But when they kept on going, I knew they were taking to someone else.

Is this the same thing outside New York?

Also, I’ve never seen any other group of people talk in a non-stop manner, like these NYC cabbies always do. It’s like they barely come up for air. And they never seem to stop to listen to the person on the other end of the line. It’s just non stop talking.

Now I’m no fan of people blabbing away on their cell phones in public. I remember once waiting on line to pay for my things in a drug store. The woman at the head of the line was going on about what she wanted for dinner, while slowly fumbling through her wallet for exact change. Why were her dinner plans so important that she had to hold up an entire line of people in the drug store?

The same holds true for people talking on the phone while driving. The fact is, even though they may be using a head set, they’re still not completely focusing on the road. They’re focusing on their conversations. If something is that urgent, people should get off the highway and then talk on the phone. The same holds true for these cabbies. Luckily, the Taxi and Limousine Commission has outlawed head sets, regardless of whether or not they’re being used by the drivers.

The city’s latest attempt to separate cab drivers from their cellphones began with a crackdown on Friday.

While cellphone use by cabbies, with or without hands, has been illegal in the city for the past decade, the new rule, passed last month, singles out hands-free headsets: cabbies may no longer wear them – whether in use or not – while behind the wheel.

In fact, any electronic device “in the immediate proximity of the driver’s ear” is now forbidden by the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

The new rule came about because it has become harder for the commission to enforce the cellphone ban as Bluetooth and other hands-free devices have shrunk with advancing technology. Drivers cited for violating the ban have argued, sometimes successfully, that they were talking to the passenger, not on the phone.

The Donkeys are not taking this conservative First Amendment victory lying down. They’ve been at work on legislation to get around the recent Supreme Court ruling.

Rep. John Hall (N.Y.) introduced legislation this week that would ban political advertising by any corporation if foreign nationals make up more than 5 percent of its shareholders.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) are leading an effort to write broader legislation aimed at curbing the political activities of corporations, including limits aimed at firms with overseas connections.

The push has angered many business leaders. They say it is futile to single out companies with overseas connections in a global economy in which U.S. automakers assemble cars in Mexico and Japanese firms build them in the United States.

“Bashing foreign companies may seem like a good idea in terms of populist message, but it’s not good policy in today’s economy,” said Nancy McLernon, president of the Organization for International Investment, a trade group representing major foreign-based multinationals.

They really should, considering how dhimmified they’ve become.

The latest example of their lunacy is that former Prime Minister Tony Blair was grilled by current Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Chilcot Inquiry over the Iraq war.

Tony Blair was branded a murderer and liar last night after he ended his historic appearance before the Iraq inquiry with a blank refusal to voice regrets over toppling Saddam Hussein.

After six hours in which the Chilcot inquiry team had largely failed to breach his defences, the former Prime Minister brought trouble on himself by failing to show the contrition that his critics wanted.

Mr Blair, who gave a fluent, assured performance, refused to apologise for going to war, said that he would do the same again, and then warned that today’s leaders might have to take similar action to disarm Iran.

He went as far as telling the inquiry that it should pose the “2010 question” and ask what would have happened if America and Britain had lost their nerve and allowed Saddam to go on and build nuclear weapons.

To his credit, Mr. Blair didn’t let those leftist goons bully him. He stood his ground.

As a result of body scanners now being used to detect external bombs, Al Qaeda terrorists have gotten more inventive. According to Britain’s MI5, they’re now having the bombs surgically implanted inside their bodies.

It is understood MI5 became aware of the threat after observing increasingly vocal internet ‘chatter’ on Arab websites this year.

The warning comes in the wake of the failed attempt by London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up an airliner approaching Detroit on Christmas Day.
One security source said: ‘If the terrorists are talking about this, we need to be ready and do all we can to counter the threat.’

A leading source added that male bombers would have the explosive secreted near their appendix or in their buttocks, while females would have the material placed inside their breasts in the same way as figure-enhancing implants.

Experts said the explosive PETN (Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate) would be placed in a plastic sachet inside the bomber’s body before the wound was stitched up like a normal operation incision and allowed to heal.

A shaped charge of 8oz of PETN can penetrate five inches of armour and would easily blow a large hole in an airliner.

Security sources said the explosives would be detonated by the bomber using a hypodermic syringe to inject TATP (Triacetone Triperoxide) through their skin into the explosives sachet.

This is all the more reason for Britain to stop all Muslim immigration and to deport any local Muslims preaching jihad.

First, RINO Mayor Bloomberg was for it. Now he’s against it. Is it because he (and other Democrats) had a change of heart in terms of giving terrorists access to our civilian justice system?

Not a chance in hell!

Apparently, the logistics of having this high profile trial in lower Manhattan while providing security would have involved shutting down lower Manhattan, and having snipers posted on rooftops proved to be too expensive. However the icing on the cake was that the real estate brokers were worried that they wouldn’t be able to sell apartments in lower Manhattan.

Unfortunately, the potential cost of such a long trial, and the idea of shutting down lower Manhattan seemed to be the main considerations of my fellow New Yorkers. For people who pride themselves on being smart, with it, and generally enlightened, none of these people had anything to say about the immorality of treating an act of war as a civil matter. It didn’t occur to any of them that the prosecution would have to hand over loads of CIA intelligence data to the defense, which would further jeopardize our national security. Obvious they didn’t care that this spectacle would have been Obama’s and Eric Holder’s way of putting *America* on trial. And let’s not forget that those defense lawyers would have rounded up every single America hating Muslim to sit on that jury. Khalid Sheikh Mommed would have gotten off scot free, just like O.J.

Anyway, moving along…the mayor of Newburgh NY has offered to host the trials in his city. The man obviously wants the publicity and the government dollars.

In other news, Obama is asking for 200 million dollars for any American city/town to host the 9/11 trials. This would not have been necessary if he just stuck to a military tribunal.

Usually, when left leaning Supreme Court justices rule in favor of murderers, rapists, pedophiles and terrorists, American liberals say it’s the law, and that others have to just accept it as a fait accompli. Not so for Barack Obama, who channeled Ugandan dictator Idi Amin during last night’s SOTU speech.

Here’s what Obama said:

“With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama told a packed House of Representatives chamber Wednesday night.

“I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people. And I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.”

In this video, you can see Justice Samuel Alito grimacing and mouthing the words “not true.”

Here’s Lawrence Auster’s excellent commentary:

The inappropriateness of Obama’s remark about the Supreme Court last night really is stunning. In an earlier viewing I hadn’t taken in how bad it was, because I had been focused on Justice Alito’s reaction, which has been the main topic of discussion. Atlas Shrugs has the clip. The justices were there as guests of the Congress, they were there for no other reason than to pay respects to the president during his speech. And while they’re there listening to him, he attacks their recent decision in a highly partisan and tendentious way, provoking a standing ovation by the Democratic congressmen and senators who are seated and then standing around the justices. Obama denounces the Supreme Court, and the Democrats applaud the denunciation, while the justices sit there staring straight ahead, helpless.

I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it in American history. This is like something you’d expect in a thugocracy, where the Top Leader at a meeting of his henchmen suddenly singles out one of them for punishment. It reminds of the filmed incident in the late 1970s when Saddam Hussein denounced one of his lieutenants as a traitor and had him taken out of the room.

Of course the Democrats and the head of SEIU are outraged. and of course Obama’s kept whores on CNN rushed to his defense.

I say Obama should keep up his public rebukes and temper tantrums. Let his veneer of being for hope, change, and post-racialism crack once and for all.